


Pragmatic

by Northisnotup



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Declarations Of Love, Endearments, M/M, Post-Mission, implied happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 11:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19375975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northisnotup/pseuds/Northisnotup
Summary: Five minutes to evac. A man left behind. A team in no condition for retrieval.





	Pragmatic

**Author's Note:**

> So this happened I guess. Unbeta'd, written in a sprint over the course of an hour while avoiding my other McHanzo fic in progress. Come hang out on tumblr @northisnotup and twitter @bejewelednorth

"No!"

A rasping scoff answers his outburst as static over the comm but no one is crass enough to comment on the breach in comm etiquette right now. Not when they're barely standing, bloodied and sweat stained, at the muster point, waiting on evac and one member who's telling them to go on without him.

"Jesse McCree you will not do this." Hanzo snarls, one hand cupping his ear as through he could reach through and shake sense into his lover. The other wraps tight around his abdomen in place of the bandages that will keep his cracked and broken ribs in place - as soon as Mercy is allowed close.

"ETA 5 minutes on Evac." Mercy reports, her voice straining to prevent it from shaking with exhaustion. "McCree, that is still time enough-"

"I ain't gonna make it." McCree's usual even drawl comes through sharp as a burr. "Sorry Ang, there's just no way."

"Yes. You will." His own voice holds both a command and an 'or else' attached to it. From the corner of his eyes he can see D.Va, barely able to stand but checking her guns. Mercy's armor sparks around her legs where she kneels in front of Dr. Zhou monitoring the whole body tremble that starts and stops as she fades in and out of unconsciousness. 

The team is in no condition for retrieval. 

"Sweetheart." McCree near croons and Hanzo feels the blank wall of his expression waver, his breath hitching audibly.

'Sweetheart' is the endearment he pulls out of his hat when he thinks he's made Hanzo angry. 'Sweetheart' is for when he plays the diversion on missions and gets hurt, when he crosses the line in an argument, and, on one rare occasion, when Hanzo had entered their rooms to see McCree knelt between Genji's legs, knuckle deep in the mechanics that composed his right thigh.

 

_ ("Sweetheart, I promise this isn't what it looks like." _

_ "It looks as though you are crudely attempting to fix something wrong with my brother so he does not have to beg Dr. Zeigler or submit to Trobjorn's wrath." _

_ "...Yeah, that's pretty much it." _

_ "Hm." _

_ "I'm still in trouble, ain't I?" _

_ "Yes. Genji - get out." _

_ "My leg doesn't work!" _

_ "You can limp. Get out.") _

 

"You know what I love most about you?" The tone is gentle, almost cajoling but the words still cause Hanzo to nearly gasp in offense.

"That is not fair."

Mercy catches his eye, her face scarred with sympathy and holds up three fingers.

There is no time.

"Do what you do best." He spits out, and tears the comm from his ear so he can't be torn apart by sweet words anymore. Mercy will need a hand with Dr. Zhou when their transport arrives. He starts over, hissing low through his teeth as every shift causes a fresh wave of pain to crest.

"Hanzo..." D.Va limps slowly to their cluster and hovers a hand over his shoulder, hesitating. Hanzo grits his teeth against the pain and throws her arm over his shoulders, steadying her. Tucking his chin against his chest, he focuses all his attention on preparing them for evac. One foot in front of another and breathing steady through the splinters of pain that wrack his chest. One pain to lessen another. 

"We can't just leave him." D.Va says immediately. "There has got to be a way.  Can't we try and track his location and pick him up?"

"Even if we could find him, we risk the attention of enemies and the authorities when we are completely vulnerable."

D.Va takes her own steadying breath. "I don't like it." She snaps, but stops actively resisting.

"Do not underestimate him." He chides before he can help himself. "If he doesn't want to be found then he will not be."

"You can't be okay with this."

"I will do what I must." Holds both D.Va and his own emotions steady as the bone-rattling echo of their evac starts to touch down. Steady and strong, Pharah has them on board and back in the air in another five minutes.

Even knowing that no one is coming, Hanzo continues to stare at the Muster Point until he can't see it anymore.

"Soldier 76 is on route with Tracer for retrieval." Fareeha calls, voice loud over the engines and Dr. Ziegler's buzzing, beeping, clicking equipment.

"Hear that?"

It takes Hanzo a moment to realize that Dr. Ziegler isn't talking to him, but into her comm. That they're still in range with McCree and likely will be for another ten minutes.

His comm stays resolutely in his pocket.

"Hanzo?"

"My ribs will need to be wrapped."

"Yes, I know." Dr. Ziegler nods, then pauses, looking hesitant, blue eyes sliding away. "Jesse wants me to ask you something."

He scowls, forces himself to keep staring ahead, not to grab at his comm and yell until his voice fails him. "What?"

"He says you still have to answer his question, if not for him, than for the rest of us." She keeps her head down, focusing only on his injuries. Which signals her curiosity as well as a sign around her neck would.

"What did he ask?" Mei slurs, accent thick in her mouth. "I must have missed it."

Hana giggles. "He said 'you know what I love most about you?'" She does her best to imitate McCree's American drawl and Hanzo refrains from asking Dr. Ziegler if she absolutely _had_ to give Hana pain medication. He knows better. Despite her callsign, Dr. Ziegler is not especially merciful when it comes to pain relief. A graduate of the school of thought which states it is good for the body to know it has been injured, and good for the injured patient to know not to be as stupid next time.

Hanzo admires that about her. Usually.

"And?" Mei asks, almost excitedly. Still slurring but at least sounding more present and awake.

Swallowing, his throat suddenly tight, Hanzo waits as long as he possibly can to answer. 

He doesn't want to.

It feels intimate, to share this, this thing that is just between them which started as a barb and grew into a tease and then a sort of sweet nothing. A shorthand Jesse-and-Hanzo thing.

But Jesse is smart. Their team is hurting, smarting from the failure of their mission and the loss of Jesse himself. They need something to keep him in their thoughts, to keep even and buoyed until Jesse himself can be delivered back to them whole.

He closes his eyes.

"He loves my pragmatism." He says and counts it as his second failure when the joke falls flat, catching on the sob which wells and overflows the constriction of his throat.


End file.
